"What a strange, dear place!" she murmured. "And there is no one here?"

"No one at all. We are quite alone. We really must have you."

"I will stay, then. It's perfectly fearful, all I have to say to you. I
shall tire you to death."

Ito, appearing, was ordered to send away the lady's carriage.

"May he bring me a glass of water? Just water, please." The tall girl, in
her long black dress, moved to and fro, making a pretense of the view to
escape observation.

"What is that sloping house that roars so? It sounds like a house of
beasts. Oh, the stamps, of course! There goes one on the bare metal. Did
anything break then?"

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Thorne; "things do not break so easily as that in a
stamp-mill. Only the rock gets broken."

Ito returned with a tray of iced soda, and was spoken to aside by his
mistress.

"It's quite a farce," she said, "preparing beds for our friends in this
weather. No one sleeps until after two, and then it is morning; and though
we shut out the heat, it beats on the walls and burns up the air inside,
and we wake more tired than ever."

"Let us not think of sleep! I need all the night to talk in. I have to tell
you impossible things."